Main font color should be darker

[jakow]

Hey,

Let me start by saying that I love your theme, it is stunningly pretty. I like it so much I switched permanently from default elementaryOS theme. However, one thing is quite annoying. Sitting in front of a computer for a long time I noticed how much strain the default font color puts on my eyes. It is too bright and it feels like it requires more time to spot things in the interface than for a darker font the default elementary theme uses. Could you consider changing the default font color to a darker one?

Thanks :) jakow

[mbacou]

Yes I agree with @jakow. Text needs a tad more contrast.

[PJ-Singh-001]

The font color is certainly an aspect of the theme that gives it a unique character.

However, I am also experiencing the eye-strain.

Perhaps replacing #5c616c with #494d56 may help.

494d56 is only two shades darker than #5c616c, so still keeps the character of the original color while being easier to read.

[lakerssuperman]

Agree. The font is too light and eventually my eyes start to strain to read it. Otherwise I really enjoy the theme.

[jeremy447]

I agree, I really love the theme too, but the fonts are not enough dark. I'm also experiencing eye-strain. Also I installed the Arc theme for my father and he didn't support it. I had to switch his theme back to the default.

The font color of the default Gnome shell theme (Adwaita) is good and maybe we should use something like that. Or maybe let the choice to the user, like the transparency setting ?

[jeremy447]

I really hope that can be improved. A little more contrast will reduce a lot the eye-strain. Thanks !

[jeremy447]

Hello @horst3180,

Do you think you can improve the contrast of the fonts ? This is a long time issue and our eyes suffer sometimes :( FWIW some people, like my father, can't even support it.

Thanks !

[livingsilver94]

I agree the OP: fonts are too light, they are not immediate to read and require effort to be spotted.

[gamax92]

Also agree, one of the first things I did with this theme was edit it to increase text contrast. The theme is in general very bright and low contrast.

[nd2s]

Is there an easy way to change the colour without modifying the source files?

[jeremy447]

I think this article can apply here

https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6

[nd2s]

Definitely, the current design is unusable. The theme should keep Gnome's default text colour.

[jeremy447]

@horst3180 please can you make the font darker or at least add a build option to have better font ? We love your theme but this little detail kill the usability. Thanks !

[gauteh]

👍

[madjxatw]

Agree, the font on the white background looks light grey not even black. Another issue is the font on the dark panel becomes no longer white.

[jeremy447]

I switched back to Adwaita because of this low contrast problem...

[PJ-Singh-001]

If you absolutely must have darker fonts, you can do the following...

(1) BACKUP (IMPORTANT!) Do this once, to make a back of your original theme, so you can restore it.

$ mkdir ~/Arc_Backup $ cp -r /usr/share/themes/Arc /usr/share/themes/Arc-Darker ~/Arc_Backup

(2) CHANGE FONT COLOR Chose 2a or 2b or 2c...

(2a) This is for slightly darker font. It is a very subtle difference and improves readability while keeping the Arc "look"...

$ find /usr/share/themes/Arc -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #494d56|g' {} \; $ find /usr/share/themes/Arc-Darker -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #494d56|g' {} \;

(2b) This is for black fonts. It has best readability, but compromises the Arc "look"...

$ find /usr/share/themes/Arc -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #000000|g' {} \; $ find /usr/share/themes/Arc-Darker -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #000000|g' {} \;

(2c) Pick your own color... Replace XXXXXX with the color of your choice...

$ find /usr/share/themes/Arc -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #XXXXXX|g' {} \; $ find /usr/share/themes/Arc-Darker -not -type d -exec sudo sed -i 's|color: #5c616c|color: #XXXXXX|g' {} \;

(3) RESTORE Always do this before running 2a or 2b or 2c

$ sudo cp -r ~/Arc_Backup/Arc ~/Arc_Backup/Arc-Darker /usr/share/themes/

[pauldmartinphd]

The above fix doesn't work for window titles. To fix the fonts on window titles use the above method but with 's|82, 93, 118|0, 0, 0|g'

Edit: Changed question to solution

[wooque]

Can't thumbup this enough. Great theme, just font color need to be a bit darker.

[R-a-l-f]

Hi,

I'm in progress customizing the Arc theme. How can I change the font colour for the GTK menu bars? Until now I couldn't find the related font colour, e.g. running find /usr/share/themes/Arc/ -not -type d -exec grep "menu" {} \; didn't help. Maybe I didn't read carefully enough. FWIW perhaps I'll write a script to customize and test variations of the theme, but at the moment I'm short in time, so there's just a raw draft in place.

IMO the theme is a good starting point to get a theme a little bit closer to functional design as used for planes, military gear and ships. The grey fonts for the GTK menu bars might be stylish, but they aren't functional.

Regards, Ralf

[R-a-l-f]

PS:

The problem are less the font colours of the menu bar, but it's still a serious issue that simply changing 5c616c to e.g. 000000 as recommended by PJSingh5000, doesn't change all font colours at all, e.g. take a look at the MUA Evolution. Fonts of plain text emails are still bright.

I stay with

$ pacman -Q gnome-themes-standard gnome-themes-standard 3.18.0-1

because I want a theme that is ok for GTK2, too.

Repositories are already at

$ pacman -Si gnome-themes-standard | grep Ver Version : 3.22.3-1

I hope to find a replacement for the old Adwaita, unfortunately Arc isn't usable. Does somebody know a theme similar to the old Adwaita or Arc, but with a sane font colour?

Revocation ;)

[faronium]

I'm going to pile on here. I can't seem to solve this using the above approaches and after a day of using this otherwise wonderful theme, I've got to go back. feels like I've got cataracts.